bear with me everyone i dont have much computer savvy. seems i'm posting my questions in the wrong forums,sorry bout that.anyway,i got this oscar and pleco given to me they are small at present,and in an undersized tank,i have ordered a 75 gallon and am awaiting its arrival. i have little experience with fish,after reading on this site i see i have been doing it all wrong, i have been feeding only pellets,but yesterday i bought nightcrawlers for it and it didnt have any interest in them. instead it started nibbling at my pleco.need help and advice in all areas so that i have happy healthy fish. should i return the pleco to the pet store? will the oscar be content in the 75 all alone? my tank will be a marineland 75 gallon,with 600gph 3 stage filtration and 200 watt heater. i want sand substrate do i need under gravel filter with that?please advise me! thanks everyone

plecos are more than cappable of taking their share of damage. as long as it cant fit in the oscars mouth, it should be fine. they are pretty well armor plated. if you see any damage occour, you might try separating them for a bit then reintroducing them. usually oscar will lose intrest in plecos after they figure out they cant really do anything to it.

yeah my oscars never really went for nightcrawlers either, sometimes they would eat them, but most of the time i would put one in my tank and it would just dig into the substrate and drown and id have to find the dead worm. you might try meal worm or juvenile (the ones without wings) crickets, my oscars go nuts for them!

the oscar would be just fine by itself, altho with a 75 you could have 1-2 small tankmates, altho when grown, it wont really be enough for an oscar and a pleco. the common plecos get huge, like 2 feet long. so one day you may have to rehome the pleco or get a bigger tank, or think about one of the designer plecos (lol thats what i call the expensive plecos lol, they are rediculously overpriced) that max out at like a foot long.

and sand substrate doesnt work with UGF. its too light, it would just blow off and get stirred up in the current.

and what exactly do you mean by 3 stage filtration? is it a sump? a wet/dry? a canister? hang on the back filters??

well as i said it'll be my first"real" aquarium so the brochure says its mechanical,bio-logical,and chemical. other than that i know nothing.and its a canopy if that helps any

It may take some time for the Oscar to get used to the food.
But they have a particular taste and mine simply refuses any food from time to time.
But it's been the other way around with mine.
He's been eating all kinds of live worms and bugs and recently just started to eat pellets.
Get your pleco a good hiding spot, like some driftwood and he should be fine.
That is if the pleco doesn't fit in your O's mouth.
Good to see you're upgrading.
Your O will love that.

UGF's dont work with sand, UGF's are a outdated old way of filtering, use a cannister instead. If you want to nearly cut out gravel cleaning put a UGF in with a gravel tidy and put the output of a cannister into the uplift tube(this is reverse UGF), otherwise forget UGF's

Oscars usually love worms, maybe yours is put of by the size of them. Try some maggots, get them from a fishing tackle shosp- dont get the dyed ones though

as someone mentioned above you SHOULD get your plecco a piece of bogwood,
healthy for them and you will find it spends a lot of it's time on it,
try and get it from a lfs that sell them from the water, otherwise you may find it will stain the water for a while,
again as mentioned the oscar will grow faster than a plec' and if your O' turns out to be rambo he may try and swallow a small plec',
but if they grow together they more than likely will be ok

les_looking wrote:

They actually need the woodraspings to digest their food.
Although most algae wafers allready have some rasped wood in the wafers, i still advice some wood.

Noddy wrote:


Yes my once large bit of bog wood is now half the size after owning a plec

Here's a piece i took out last summer after some time of pleco attention.
The light parts are all rasped off.

oscar devoured half dozen crickets and three large meal worms today, i think we're onto something!